It’s wild to me that ‘enthusiast’ devices in 2026 use 4gb of ram and 4xA53 or 6xA55 processors. Meanwhile similarly priced phones have 8gb ram, 2xA78+6xA55 processors, high refresh rate displays and all the other things a phone might have that this doesn’t.
I know that most big soc manufacturers don’t have open firmwares, but this isn’t even using a moderately powerful Rockchip soc.
Such a weird thing that Apple keeps putting cutting edge top end processors in their simplest devices used by non-techy people while tech gadgets like this have old af low end processors
Other phone manufacturers get monies from phones other than the selling price (ad revenue, money from eg Facebook for preinstalling their app, revenue from their on-phone un-uninstallable stores, etc). Like printers or gaming consoles, the hardware is subsidised.
(And ofc scale, that’s a huge hurdle on it’s own.)
Difference in scale. Very common in new electronics.
If you produce <10k units per year, you are in the “fuck you” category of customers where most companies won’t even give you the time of day, much less data sheets under NDAs, design tools, or actual access to their chips at somewhat reasonable prices. Chips that are 5 years old are often fully open. This is especially egregious in the wearables space… (Not saying it is for this phone, per se)
Also older chips use RAM that can actually still be bought because smartphone companies + AI bullshit haven’t bought all of the stock for the next 2 years.
It’s wild to me that ‘enthusiast’ devices in 2026 use 4gb of ram and 4xA53 or 6xA55 processors. Meanwhile similarly priced phones have 8gb ram, 2xA78+6xA55 processors, high refresh rate displays and all the other things a phone might have that this doesn’t.
I know that most big soc manufacturers don’t have open firmwares, but this isn’t even using a moderately powerful Rockchip soc.
Such a weird thing that Apple keeps putting cutting edge top end processors in their simplest devices used by non-techy people while tech gadgets like this have old af low end processors
Other phone manufacturers get monies from phones other than the selling price (ad revenue, money from eg Facebook for preinstalling their app, revenue from their on-phone un-uninstallable stores, etc). Like printers or gaming consoles, the hardware is subsidised.
(And ofc scale, that’s a huge hurdle on it’s own.)
The price is kinda ok on this one.
Difference in scale. Very common in new electronics.
If you produce <10k units per year, you are in the “fuck you” category of customers where most companies won’t even give you the time of day, much less data sheets under NDAs, design tools, or actual access to their chips at somewhat reasonable prices. Chips that are 5 years old are often fully open. This is especially egregious in the wearables space… (Not saying it is for this phone, per se)
Also older chips use RAM that can actually still be bought because smartphone companies + AI bullshit haven’t bought all of the stock for the next 2 years.
I don’t think it’s strange. In no field the experts want bleeding edge machines. They do it with the most efficient